Why did nations expand their overseas empires?

Cambridge IGCSE History 0470 · Paper 1 Section A, Core Content Option A Syllabus: 2027 and 2028 Option A: The nineteenth century: the development of modern nation states, 1848 to 1914 Key Question 5 of six

This is the imperialism Key Question. It covers why European states and the United States took overseas territory in the nineteenth century, how three named European powers governed the parts of Africa they took, what happened in India in 1857 and what it changed, and how the United States came to hold Cuba and the Philippines. If you are looking for the causes of the First World War, that is Key Question 6 and colonial rivalry is dealt with there as a cause of European tension, not as a story about empire. If you are looking for South Africa, China, or the British Empire in general, none of those is in this Key Question's specified content and section 1 says so plainly.

The trap on this topic is not difficulty. It is breadth. A candidate can write two accurate pages about the nineteenth century world and score in Level 2, because Cambridge marks against a short, named list of places. Learn that list first.

1. What the syllabus actually asks

This is the wording printed in the Cambridge IGCSE History 0470 syllabus for 2027 and 2028. Learn the Key Question itself, because the 10 mark questions are built out of it directly.

Key Question 5

Why, and with what effects, did nations gain and expand their overseas empires in the nineteenth century?

Focus points

• What were the motives behind European and US imperialism?
• How varied were the impacts of European imperialism on Africans?
• Why, and with what effects, did Indians resist British rule?
• Why, and with what effects, did the United States gain former Spanish colonies?

Specified content

• Reasons for imperialism: economic, military, geopolitical, religious and cultural motives
• Europeans in Africa: case studies of French, British and Belgian imperialism, and their impacts on Africans:
• the French model of assimilation and direct rule; Faidherbe and Senegal
• the British model of indirect rule; Lugard and Nigeria
• the Belgians and private imperialism; Leopold II and the Congo
• The British in India: the events of 1857 and the changes they brought to British rule
• Wars of independence in the Philippines and Cuba, the Spanish-American War and the Treaty of Paris:
• the debate in the USA over US imperialism
• the Philippines; consequences of American control on the Filipinos
• American intervention in Cuba to 1906

The four focus points are four essay titles

Cambridge defines the three layers itself: key questions define the over-arching issues, focus points identify the issues that enable candidates to gain an understanding of the key question, and specified content provides guidance on what needs to be studied.

So the focus points are not four chapters to memorise. They are four arguments, and each is a ready made 10 mark question.

What is in scope and what is not

This is the one section on this page you should read twice, because on this Key Question more than any other, accurate writing about the wrong place earns nothing.

In scope. The five motive categories named in the syllabus. Three African case studies, and only three: France in Senegal under Faidherbe, Britain in Nigeria under Lugard, Belgium and Leopold II in the Congo. The effects of all three on Africans. India in 1857 and the changes to British rule that followed. Cuba, the Philippines, the Spanish-American War, the Treaty of Paris, the American debate about imperialism, and American intervention in Cuba to 1906.

Not in scope.

• China. No part of the current specified content mentions China, the Opium Wars, the Treaty of Nanking, the Arrow incident or the Boxer Rising. Section 2 explains why so many past papers are full of them and why that is now a trap rather than a resource.
• Depth Studies. Everything on this page is Section A. The Depth Studies are Section B and are marked from their own content.
• Option B. The twentieth century Key Questions are a different option. You answer two questions from one option's four, not a mixture.
• Colonial rivalry as a cause of the First World War. That belongs to Key Question 6, whose specified content names "colonial rivalries" in its own right. Do not import Morocco, Weltpolitik or the Anglo-German naval race into an answer on this Key Question.
• Other African territories. South Africa, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and the rest are legitimate supporting knowledge inside an answer about motives, and Cambridge's own mark schemes credit them there. They are not case studies in their own right, and an answer whose only examples are Egypt and South Africa cannot show the syllabus's three models of rule.

A borderline you should understand rather than fear. The Berlin Conference of 1884 to 1885 and the phrase "Scramble for Africa" are not named in the specified content, and Cambridge set them as short recall questions before 2024. They remain good supporting detail for the motives focus point, because they are the mechanism by which the motives turned into territory. Do not build a whole answer on them.

The dates in the title are not the dates you are marked to

Three different date ranges are attached to this material and they do not agree, so decide now which one governs.

The option header says 1848 to 1914. The Key Question says "in the nineteenth century". The specified content prints no date range of its own, unlike Key Question 4, whose content is dated 1820 to 1877 and which Cambridge really does examine from 1820.

Follow the specified content. Two of its items run past both of the other boundaries: the Philippine-American War of 1899 to 1902 and American intervention in Cuba to 1906 are twentieth century events named in a nineteenth century Key Question, and Cambridge examined both in 2024. Others reach back before 1848: French involvement in Senegal and the beginnings of British power in India both predate it, and Cambridge's mark schemes credit that background.

So the rule here is the opposite of the one on Key Question 4. There, a printed date range narrows what counts. Here, no range is printed, the named content is the boundary, and the century in the title is not a cut-off. What still applies is any limit written into the question itself: a question that says "to 1906" is marked to 1906.

2. Where this Key Question appears on the paper

The mark ladders themselves are the same for every question on Paper 1, and they are set out in the How Cambridge marks History 0470 Paper 1 notes: the three parts and their marks, the assessment objective split, the level descriptors, and the two rules Cambridge changed for the 2024 series. Read that page once. Nothing below repeats it.

What is specific to this Key Question is where it sits on the paper, how the content of the questions changed, and what the examiner reports do and do not tell you.

It is Question 3 or Question 4, and it is set about six times in ten

Of the 48 Paper 1 mark schemes in this corpus, covering the March, June and November series from 2018 to 2024, 28 set a question on this Key Question. Within those 28 it was Question 3 fourteen times and Question 4 fourteen times, an exact split.

That matters for a practical reason. Option A occupies Questions 1 to 4, and the syllabus guarantees two questions from Key Questions 1 to 3 and two from Key Questions 4 to 6. This Key Question is one of the three that can fill the second pair, competing with the American Civil War and the First World War. It appears more often than not, but you cannot count on it. Revise it as one of two, not as your only second-half topic.

The content of the questions changed in 2024, and the change is invisible from the syllabus

This is the single most useful thing in this file, and no syllabus reading will give it to you.

In the papers from 2018 to 2023, this Key Question was examined heavily on China. Across those series Cambridge set roughly seventeen question parts on the Opium Wars, the opium trade, the Arrow incident, the Treaty of Nanking, and the Boxer Rising, including whole 10 mark questions such as "The Boxers achieved little" and "The main reason for the Opium War was the growth of opium addiction in China". In the same period Cambridge set not one question on Cuba, the Philippines or the Spanish-American War.

From the 2024 series onwards, that reverses completely. In the four 2024 papers that set this Key Question, China does not appear at all. Instead:

Every one of those eight parts maps onto a line of the current specified content. Six of the twelve parts are on the United States, which had never been examined before.

Two consequences, and they decide how you spend your time.

1. pre-2024 papers examine China heavily
2. China is absent from the current specified content
3. practising those questions revises material that can no longer be set
4. time spent on the Opium Wars is time not spent on Cuba and the Philippines

1. the US content is a quarter of the specified list
2. it was set in six of eight 2024 US parts
3. and there are only four past-paper questions on it in existence
4. so past papers will under-prepare you here and the syllabus wording is your checklist instead

Use the pre-2024 papers, but filter them. Everything they set on Africa, on the three models of rule and on 1857 is still exactly on specification, and it is the bulk of them. Skip the China questions.

Cambridge changed what it calls the events of 1857

Every mark scheme up to and including 2023 calls it the Indian Mutiny. Both 2024 papers that set it call it the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The syllabus itself avoids both and says only "the events of 1857".

Nothing is at stake in the marking: examiners credit the history, not the label. But if you are searching an older revision guide, search on both, and in your own answer the safest wording is Cambridge's current one.

The examiner reports are almost silent on this content, and that is a finding

Across the Principal Examiner reports from 2018 to 2024, the section on Section A Core Content Option A says, in nearly identical words every series:

There were too few responses to these questions for meaningful comments to be made.

That sentence covers Questions 1 to 4 in fifteen of the eighteen reports read. In the three where an Option A question does get comment, the question commented on is the First World War, not this one. No Principal Examiner report in this corpus comments on a Paper 1 imperialism question.

Read that as information, not as reassurance. It tells you that very few candidates worldwide sit Option A, so the standard is set by a small entry and the reports cannot warn you about topic-specific faults. It also means the general fault list in the How Cambridge marks History 0470 Paper 1 notes is doing more work here than on any other Key Question. Section 8 below collects the topic-specific faults from the mark schemes themselves, since the reports do not supply them.

The same content is also examined on Paper 2

Paper 2 sets one prescribed source topic per series, drawn from the Core Content. In this corpus, the Option A topic was built on this Key Question in November 2018 (the Boxer Rebellion), June 2019 (the events of 1857, and Britain and China), March 2020 (the Indian Mutiny) and June 2023 (motives for European imperialism, the impact of imperialism on Africa, and British rule in India).

Paper 2 asks a different thing entirely. The June 2023 examiner report describes candidates being asked to compare what two cartoonists thought about Leopold's Congo Free State and to weigh whether sources support a hypothesis about motives. That is source work, and Paper 1 carries no source marks at all. The overlap is worth knowing because the knowledge transfers. The skill does not.

3. Focus point: the motives behind European and US imperialism

The syllabus names five categories: economic, military, geopolitical, religious and cultural. Cambridge's mark schemes group them slightly differently, most often as economic, strategic, prestige, and the belief in a civilising duty, and it has set 10 mark questions pitting them against each other at least six times in seven years:

• "How far was European imperialism driven by economic motives?"
• "Was European imperialism driven mainly by economic or by strategic motives?"
• "European imperialism in Africa was mainly motivated by economic concerns."
• "How far was European imperialism in Africa motivated by a desire for prestige?"
• "European imperialism in Africa was mainly driven by religious and cultural factors."
• "Why did European powers scramble for Africa?" as a 6 mark question

Every one of those is the same essay with a different name at the front. Prepare the motives as four blocks you can promote or demote, not as a list.

Economic

The commonest motive in the mark schemes, and the one Cambridge's own model answers reach for first.

Colonies supplied raw materials and foods that Europe could not grow: Cambridge's schemes name bananas, palm oil, rubber, cocoa, tea, ivory, diamonds and precious metals. They supplied markets for manufactured goods free of import tariff restrictions. And they supplied outlets for the investment of surplus money.

1. European factories need raw materials Europe cannot grow
2. colonies supply them cheaply because the colonising power sets the terms
3. the finished goods are sold back at a high price
4. the profit accrues in Europe and the colony stays a supplier

The detail that turns this from Level 2 into Level 3 with the fifth mark is a named commodity attached to a named place: Britain and the diamonds of South Africa, Leopold and the rubber of the Congo, Faidherbe and the peanut trade of Senegal.

Strategic and geopolitical

Cambridge's model answer for the strategic side is unusually specific, and it is worth learning close to its own wording:

• Control of the seas mattered to Britain, and some territory was taken because it made a fuelling or coaling station for naval ships and trade.
• Britain and Russia competed in Central and South Asia, with Britain working to keep Russia out of Afghanistan, Iran and India.
• France wanted Tunisia for its commanding position in the Mediterranean.
• Britain wanted Egypt because of the Suez Canal route to India.

1. a country's wealth depends on its trade routes
2. the routes depend on ports and coaling stations along them
3. so territory is taken to protect a route rather than for itself
4. and once one power holds the route, its rival must take the next stretch

That last clause is the geopolitical motive proper, and it explains the pace: acquisitions triggered acquisitions.

Prestige and rivalry

Cambridge credits prestige as a motive in its own right. Its schemes state it directly: Germany wanted colonies because it believed it could not be a great power without them, and Leopold II believed that acquiring overseas colonies was essential if a country was to be seen as great. Leopold had already tried to obtain the Philippines from Spain, and when he failed to gain a colony for Belgium he took the Congo as a private citizen instead.

The rivalry itself is documented in Cambridge's own model answer for the Scramble. In 1876 Leopold II invited Henry Stanley to join him in researching the Congo basin. Stanley returned between 1878 and 1885 with a secret mission to organise what became the Congo Free State. When French intelligence discovered the plan, France raised its flag over the newly founded Brazzaville in 1881, and Portugal claimed the area too.

1. one power moves secretly on a territory
2. a rival's intelligence discovers it
3. the rival claims first rather than lose the ground
4. a scramble follows in which the reason for taking a place is that someone else nearly did

Cambridge also credits, at Level 2, France taking Tunisia in 1881 and Italy invading Eritrea and Somaliland, and dates the Scramble between 1881 and 1914 with a shift from informal influence to direct control by the colonising power.

Religious and cultural

The syllabus names these motives, and Cambridge marks them as genuine rather than as cover. Two things belong here and they are not the same thing.

Missionaries. Cambridge's mark schemes credit that missionaries went to convert Africans to Christianity, that they explored and mapped territory and kept careful records of it, that they set up and ran missions and schools, that they brought medical care, that Livingstone opposed slavery, and that they opposed some local African practices and beliefs. The second of those is the one candidates miss: missionaries drew attention to the opportunities of territory nobody in Europe had charted, which is how a religious motive produced an economic one.

The civilising claim. Cambridge's own wording is that Europeans "genuinely believed they knew what was best and right for other people" and that many believed Western countries had a moral responsibility to bring civilisation and Christianity. Its schemes also record without softening that this rested on a belief in racial superiority which, in Cambridge's words, "governed all their relations with Africans", and that schools set up by Europeans emphasised the superiority of European culture.

1. missionaries map and publicise unexplored territory
2. their reports create both a moral case and a commercial one
3. traders and governments follow the maps
4. and the civilising claim then justifies the rule that follows

Military and technological enablement

The syllabus lists military among the motives. Cambridge has also set the enabling side as a 6 mark question, "Why did technological advances assist imperialism?", and its scheme names:

• Steamships replacing sail, so ships no longer depended on the wind, with coaling stations in South Africa allowing near continuous sailing from Britain into the Indian Ocean.
• Railways, which opened the interiors of colonies to trade.
• Canals, the Suez Canal above all, which cut journey distances.
• Quinine, which made malarial regions survivable for Europeans.
• The Martini-Henry and Lee Enfield rifles, which gave small numbers of colonial soldiers control against far larger local forces.

Technology is not a motive. It is the answer to the question of why the nineteenth century and not the eighteenth, and used that way it is worth the fifth mark in a part (b).

How to answer the "which motive mattered most" question

The examiners are not looking for the right motive. They are looking for a stated preference with a reason attached. The strongest shape is to concede that the motives ran together and then rank them by dependency:

1. the strategic motive existed to protect trade
2. so the routes were worth holding only because of what moved along them
3. therefore the economic motive is the one the others serve

Or the other way, which is equally creditable:

1. economic gain required a territory nobody else had claimed
2. claims were only secure if a rival could be kept out
3. so the decisive motive at the moment of acquisition was rivalry, not profit

4. Focus point: Europeans in Africa, and the varied impacts on Africans

This is the heaviest section of the specified content and the most frequently examined. The syllabus fixes exactly three case studies. Learn them as a set, because Cambridge's favourite 10 mark shape on this Key Question is a comparison between two of them, and you cannot compare what you only know one of.

4.1 France: assimilation and direct rule, Faidherbe and Senegal

What assimilation was. The French governed directly. The top officials in Senegal were French, not local. Local people were taught the French language, law, religion and culture, and were promised that if they adopted them they could become French citizens with the rights and duties of citizens. Cambridge's own scheme states the aim without euphemism: "its aim was to turn the Africans into Frenchmen", because the French "believed that French civilisation was superior to African civilisation and therefore it should be imposed on the African people".

Where citizenship actually applied. This is the single most valuable specific in the whole section, and it is the difference between a 4 mark explanation and a 5 mark one. Cambridge's schemes locate assimilation's citizenship promise in Senegal's Four Communes, not across the colony. In the Four Communes, Cambridge records, slavery was abolished in 1848, the people were given voting rights, and they elected their own Deputy to the French parliament. Senegal was therefore represented in the French Parliament, and some assimilated Africans reached office and even the French National Assembly.

Faidherbe in Senegal. Cambridge's schemes credit him with:

• governing by direct rule and spreading French culture through Senegal
• opposing slavery
• extending French conquests, building a series of inland forts up the Senegal River, and bringing under subjection the country between the Senegal River and the Gambia
• establishing French control of the peanut cultivation and export industry
• improving infrastructure: roads, bridges, a railway line and a telegraph, and fresh drinking water for the Senegalese
• creating a base for further French expansion in West Africa

The case against. Cambridge's schemes are equally explicit on the other side, and a one-sided answer here is capped at Level 3. Direct rule "just turned the local people into subjects not citizens". Rule was centralised from Paris and did not involve local people. It required breaking the power and influence of local chiefs and removing traditional political authorities. Forced labour was used. Local people were not allowed to form political parties. Local traditions and customs were ignored, and Cambridge's own phrase for the outcome is "destruction of local customs". The result named in the mark scheme is growing nationalist feeling among the local population.

1. France promises citizenship in exchange for French culture
2. the promise is honoured only in the Four Communes
3. everywhere else assimilation means direct rule without the citizenship
4. so the policy delivers its costs generally and its benefits locally

4.2 Britain: indirect rule, Lugard and Nigeria

What indirect rule was. Britain ruled through the indigenous chiefs and emirs. Defeated rulers kept their positions if they accepted British authority. They were answerable to British district officers, who held final authority, and all orders from the high commissioner were transmitted through the emirs, so the emirs kept their standing with their own people. Most day to day government was carried out by the emirs. Britain kept external affairs, and often taxation and communications. The Foreign Office recommended interference only if a chief abused his powers, and then he could be removed and replaced.

Why Britain used it. Cambridge's model answer gives two reasons and you should be able to give both: Britain had to govern enormous territory and many different tribal structures with very few men, and local people resented rule by British officials but did not object to rulers from their own peoples. It was also simply cheaper.

Lugard in Nigeria. Cambridge credits him with developing the idea of indirect rule and establishing it effectively, ruling through native rulers, acting against slavery, establishing British control over Northern Nigeria, and uniting the north and south into the Protectorate of Nigeria.

The case against. Cambridge's mark schemes are unusually hard on indirect rule in the (c) exemplars, and this is where candidates who only learned the mechanism come unstuck:

• The traditional rulers and systems "were kept simply to be used for British interests". The chiefs became stooges for the British and in many areas became despotic rulers.
• Where no chief acceptable to everyone could be found, Britain appointed warrant chiefs who were not accepted locally, choosing leaders whose attitudes suited the British rather than the governed.
• The men chosen were often elders who were traditional and cautious, and they discouraged innovation and education. Emirs whose authority rested on religious obedience discouraged change.
• The system excluded the local educated elite and did nothing to train future local leaders.
• It encouraged bribery and corruption, and left Nigeria "subservient and underdeveloped".

Cambridge credits the other side too: people kept their traditional chiefs and were given respect, there was less tampering with local values and traditions, and in Nigeria people were allowed to continue with Islam.

1. Britain lacks the men to rule Nigeria directly
2. so it rules through emirs who already command obedience
3. the emirs' authority now comes from Britain rather than from their people
4. local rulers become more powerful and less accountable than before

4.3 Belgium: private imperialism, Leopold II and the Congo

The syllabus phrase is "the Belgians and private imperialism", and the word private is the whole point. Leopold II owned the Congo Free State as a private individual. The wealth belonged to him, not to Belgium. Cambridge's own scheme for the Berlin Conference records that the Congo territories were recognised as his private property.

How he ruled it. Cambridge's mark schemes state this plainly and you should not soften it:

• He had personal and total control, and set out to make as much profit as possible from ivory and rubber, in a period of great global demand for rubber.
• Private companies were given concessions to extract the rubber and were allowed to treat the local inhabitants as they liked.
• Local people, including children, were forced to work collecting rubber and ivory, often without pay.
• Those who refused, or who failed to meet their quota, were whipped and mutilated, most commonly by amputation of a hand or arm, which then made it impossible for them to work or to care for their families. Cambridge's schemes also state that people were murdered.
• The mercenary Force Publique decimated villages.
• Leopold did nothing to combat disease and famine, and the health and education of local people were ignored.

On the death toll, Cambridge does not give one figure. Its own mark schemes print three different measures: that "nearly 10 million natives died prematurely under Leopold's rule", that "the forced labour system led to the deaths of 20% of the population", and simply that "millions of Congolese were killed or mutilated". These are not reconcilable into a single number and you should not try. Use whichever phrasing you can state confidently, attribute nothing to a precise year, and let the mechanism carry the explanation rather than the arithmetic.

How Belgian rule differed in method. Cambridge's schemes note that Britain and France left different structures in place, while in the Congo the Belgians broke the country into hierarchical administrative divisions and ruled them directly, under a policy the mark scheme calls politique indigene, with all power in Belgian hands. Belgian control is described as a mixture of state, missionary and private trading interests.

1. Leopold owns the territory personally rather than governing it for a state
2. no parliament, treasury or electorate can call him to account for it
3. the only measure of success is the quota of rubber
4. so terror against the workforce becomes the administrative method

The international outcry. Cambridge's 2024 scheme refers to the international outcry against Leopold, and the June 2023 Paper 2 examiner report describes cartoons published to highlight the treatment of Africans in the Congo Free State and to put pressure on Leopold or on other countries to stop it. The reaction is part of the story and Cambridge credits it.

4.4 The impacts on Africans

The focus point asks how varied the impacts were, so the answer must be two-sided by construction. Cambridge's mark schemes across seven years repeat almost the same two lists, and both are creditable.

What Cambridge credits as harm

• Raw materials taken very cheaply and the finished products sold back at expensive prices, so the profit stayed in Europe.
• Plantations organised for the European market rather than for food. Cambridge's own example: instead of growing food to feed people in Africa, plantations produced crops for processing into luxury and semi-luxury goods for Europe, cocoa for chocolate and palm oil for soap and margarine. Local people did not benefit from the trade and were in some cases treated as slave labourers on the plantations.
• African traditions, culture and languages were destroyed, and the spread of Christianity undermined African religions.
• A view of racial superiority governed all relations with Africans, and schools set up by Europeans taught the superiority of European culture.
• Native peoples were exploited as cheap labour and the colonist became the ruler.

What Cambridge credits as benefit

• Roads, railways, schools and hospitals, improving mobility, health and education.
• Sanitation systems, better health, and law and order.
• Trade in bananas, palm oil, rubber, cocoa and tea exchanged for manufactured goods, from which some local producers did gain.
• New farming methods and rising production, and the introduction of institutions such as banking.
• The ending of slavery in territories where European powers suppressed it.

Two things stop this becoming a bland balance sheet, and both are Cambridge's own points.

First, the mark schemes note that the transport systems were built to exploit Africa more efficiently: the railways and ports existed to move natural resources to the coast for export. The same railway is on both lists, and saying why is a Level 5 move.

Second, Cambridge credits African objection to the supposed benefits themselves. Its schemes state that many local people objected to the stopping of traditional practices, including the stamping out of slavery, sacrifices and extreme punishments, and objected to the attempt to spread Christianity at the expense of Islam, Hinduism and traditional tribal religions. A benefit imposed is still an imposition, and the examiners give marks for saying so.

1. Europeans build railways, ports, schools and hospitals
2. the railways and ports are laid out to carry resources to the coast for export
3. the schools teach European superiority
4. so the same works that raise the standard of living also entrench the extraction they were built to serve

4.5 The comparison questions, which are the commonest 10 mark shape here

Cambridge has repeatedly set this Key Question's part (c) as a direct comparison of two of the three models. The questions actually set include:

• "Which was more beneficial for the local population, indirect rule in Nigeria or assimilation in Senegal?"
• "The British approach of indirect rule was more effective than the French approach of assimilation and direct rule."
• "How similar were the ways in which France and Belgium treated their African colonies?"
• "Britain and France controlled their colonies in similar ways."
• "How different was Belgian imperialism from that of other European countries?"
• "How typical of European imperialism in Africa was Leopold II's rule in the Congo?"

Cambridge's own Level 5 answer to the last of these is worth learning as a model of what a judgement looks like on this topic. It concedes the similarity, then locates the real difference in motive rather than in method: other powers exploited resources too and regarded themselves as superior, but they also thought they had a duty to put something back and provided some education and medical care, whereas Leopold's aim was simply to make a fortune, strip everything he could and put nothing back. On that reading Leopold's rule was similar in what it did and different in what it was for.

Note carefully that this is Cambridge's argument, and it is the generous reading of the other powers. The mark schemes credit the harsher reading too. What they will not credit is a list of similarities and differences with no line taken.

A precision that costs candidates marks. France used direct rule and assimilation. Britain used indirect rule. Belgium ruled the Congo directly, through Leopold personally. Get those three the right way round. Section 8 explains why the mark schemes themselves are not entirely safe to check this against.

5. Focus point: why, and with what effects, did Indians resist British rule?

The syllabus narrows this focus point sharply in its specified content: "The British in India: the events of 1857 and the changes they brought to British rule." So the resistance in scope is the rising of 1857 and its consequences. Indian nationalism after the 1880s is outside it.

What happened

The rising broke out in 1857 among the sepoys of the Bengal Army of the East India Company. It began at Meerut and spread, reaching Delhi, and was widespread across north and central India. Cambridge's schemes state that it was put down in 1859.

Lucknow is the episode Cambridge has set as a recall question, and its scheme is unusually detailed: on 30 May most of the Oudh and Bengal troops at Lucknow rebelled; the British Commissioner Sir Henry Lawrence fortified the Residency; Lawrence drove rebels from the city with the British 32nd Regiment of Foot, then led a reconnaissance north which met stiff resistance and retreated; over 8000 sepoys attacked the Residency against 1500 soldiers; a relief force under Havelock lost over 500 out of 2000 troops; the first siege lasted 87 days; a second relief force under Sir Colin Campbell was sent, and Campbell ordered the evacuation to Alambagh, which was easier to defend; the second siege lasted 61 days; and the rebels controlled Lucknow until its recapture in March 1858. Cambridge's schemes also record the slaughter of women and children at Cawnpore after a siege.

Why it broke out

Cambridge sets this as a 6 mark question repeatedly, and it credits a wide range of causes. Learn them in three groups so you can explain two and rank the rest.

The cartridges. The British introduced the new Enfield rifle, whose cartridges were greased with tallow from beef and lard from pork, offensive to Hindus and Muslims respectively. Soldiers had to bite the cartridge to use it, and believed they would lose caste by doing so. Cambridge's model chain: soldiers refused, were court martialled and imprisoned, broke out of prison, ransacked military buildings, and the rebellion spread from there.

The army's own grievances, which Cambridge lists separately and which candidates almost always omit: sepoys were badly paid and had few opportunities for promotion; they were now expected to serve further away and lost the extra pay for serving abroad; and the Bengal Army had begun recruiting from lower castes, which threatened the social status of high caste soldiers. Cambridge also notes tension within the army between high caste Brahmins and Muslims and Sikhs.

East India Company misrule, which is the whole subject of one 2024 question. Cambridge credits: the Doctrine of Lapse, under which the Company took the land of Indian rulers who died without a male heir; the resulting anger of local rulers and princes at their power and land being taken; harsh land taxes that peasants hated; the Company's attempts to stop local practices such as sati and child marriage; attempts to spread Christianity and rumours that Indians would be forced to convert; and Lord Dalhousie introducing reforms too quickly and ignoring Eastern customs and religious practices.

1. the Company's reforms attack religion, custom and inheritance at once
2. Indians conclude their whole way of life is under attack
3. the greased cartridges arrive as proof rather than as a new grievance
4. so a barracks refusal becomes a rising across north and central India

That chain is the answer to the "how important were greased cartridges" question, which Cambridge has set as a 10 mark title. The cartridges were the trigger. Whether they were the cause is exactly what you are being asked.

Was it a national rising?

Cambridge has set this as a 10 mark question twice, and it prints strong material on both sides.

For. The rebels asked the Mughal emperor to lead them and proclaimed Bahadur Shah Zafar as Emperor, aiming to restore the Mughal Empire, which was a symbol of unity across the whole country rather than a regional dynasty. The sepoys did not seek to revive small regional kingdoms; they fought for country-wide rule and for the British to be driven out. The rising was widespread and involved thousands of people, many with no connection to the army, which is more than a military mutiny.

Against. The revolt was limited to north and central India, and some parts of the country were completely untouched. Cambridge's own Level 5 answer states that there is doubt whether there was the planning or coordination you would expect of a national independence rebellion. Sikhs did not join, seeing it as a Muslim rebellion, and Cambridge's scheme also records that Sunni Muslims did not join because they thought it a Shiite rebellion. Indian soldiers from the Madras Army helped the British put it down. And Cambridge credits, at Level 2, the argument that it could not have been a nationalist rebellion because India as a nation did not exist at the time.

There is also a rival explanation Cambridge treats as a genuine third option: that religion, not nationalism, was the driver, evidenced by religious leaders among the rebellion's leaders, and by the belief that the British were trying to convert Indians to Christianity.

Why the British response was so violent, and whether it was justified

Cambridge has set both of these, and the mark schemes are direct about what happened.

What the British did. Thousands of Indians were killed. Rebels were fired from cannons. Muslims were made to eat pork and Hindus to eat beef. Indians were tortured. When the British army captured towns it went on a rampage, destroying everything and committing atrocities. Leaders were exiled or executed. Cambridge's own summary is that far more Indians than British were killed.

Why. Cambridge's model explanation puts the press first: reports of atrocities committed by the rebels appeared in the British press, in Cambridge's own words "even when there was no foundation for them", and the outrage they produced created public pressure for harsh punishment which the authorities felt forced to satisfy. Its schemes add three more reasons: the rebels had committed atrocities, which provoked atrocities in return; the British were shocked that their authority had been attacked by people they regarded as inferior, which Cambridge's scheme names outright as racism; and Britain valued its Indian empire and had to ensure nothing like this happened again.

1. exaggerated atrocity reports reach the British press
2. British public opinion demands revenge
3. the authorities are under pressure to be seen to punish
4. the reprisals exceed anything the fighting required, and were later condemned in Britain itself

What changed afterwards

This is the "with what effects" half of the focus point and it is set as a recall question as often as anything else here. The changes Cambridge credits:

• The East India Company no longer ruled India. The Government of India Act passed the government of India to the British Crown.
• A Secretary of State for India was made responsible for Indian affairs and a new department, the India Office, was created.
• India was governed by a Governor-General, the Viceroy, appointed by Britain. Lord Canning was the first Viceroy. The British Raj began, and Queen Victoria was later made Empress of India.
• An Indian Civil Service was set up, and more Indians were brought into it, which Cambridge's scheme says created a new Indian middle class.
• Westernisation was stopped and there was more religious toleration and more respect for local traditions and the wishes of local leaders.
• Britain adopted a more cautious policy towards landlords and princes.
• The British Army in India was reorganised with a higher proportion of British soldiers, and many Indian regiments were disbanded.
• The Mughal dynasty was ended.
• Investment followed, with roads and railways built, an education system introduced, and hospitals and universities opened.

Cambridge has set "The changes to British rule resulting from the Indian Mutiny were beneficial to Indians" and "The Indian Mutiny achieved little" as 10 mark questions, and the same list serves both sides. The reforms are real. So is the fact that they were designed to make British rule secure: authority was tightened by passing control to the Crown, the army was made harder to turn, and any nationalist hope in the Mughal dynasty was extinguished with it.

1. the rising fails militarily and is punished savagely
2. but it convinces Britain that the Company cannot govern India
3. the Crown takes over and stops the reforms that caused the anger
4. so Indians gain religious toleration and civil service posts, and lose the possibility of removing the British at all

6. Focus point: why, and with what effects, did the United States gain former Spanish colonies?

This is the newest part of the specified content, the least represented in past papers, and therefore the part where the syllabus wording rather than a question bank has to be your checklist. There are four sub-items and Cambridge examined all four in 2024.

The Cuban war of independence and the road to war

In 1895 the Cubans began a war of independence. The Spanish reacted violently, executing as many rebels as they could. Cambridge's mark scheme states that Cubans fed American journalists with stories of atrocities including torture, rape and mass pillage, with the Cuban dead left heaped at the side of the road, and that these stories, amplified by a strongly anti-Spanish popular press, whipped up American opinion into demands for war. Cambridge names this yellow journalism in its own scheme.

Two further pressures Cambridge credits: American economic interests in Cuba, and the simple proximity of Cuba to the United States.

The USS Maine. The USS Maine was an American battleship sent to Havana harbour to protect American citizens and property during the Cuban rebellion. It exploded, and hundreds of American sailors were killed. Several popular American newspapers claimed the Spanish had sunk it and demanded revenge. Public pressure on the government became enormous, McKinley's government gave way, sent an ultimatum to Spain and began blockading Cuba. Spain declared war, and two days later the United States declared war on Spain.

Theodore Roosevelt's part, which Cambridge set as a recall question: he wanted Spain ejected from Cuba; when the Maine blew up he ordered US warships to prepare for war; he campaigned for war; he resigned as Assistant Secretary of the Navy; he formed the First US Volunteer Cavalry Regiment; and he took his troops to fight in Cuba.

1. Spain represses the Cuban rising
2. Cuban exiles supply American papers with atrocity stories
3. the Maine explodes into an opinion already primed for war
4. a reluctant McKinley is pushed into an ultimatum, and Spain declares war first

Cambridge has set the 10 mark question "The United States went to war against Spain in 1898 because of Spanish atrocities in Cuba", and its own Level 5 answer takes the atrocities side: the sinking of the Maine mattered, but it added anti-Spanish feeling to a public that was already demanding intervention because of the atrocity reports. Either judgement is creditable. That one is Cambridge's.

The debate in the USA over US imperialism

The syllabus names this explicitly, and Cambridge examined it in June 2024. Reasons Americans opposed the war, from the mark scheme:

• Some saw it as imperialism, and the United States "had always been proud of the fact that it had broken away from British imperialism when independence had been won". Invading Cuba went against that founding principle.
• Cambridge names Thomas Reed as an opponent who saw it as an expansionist policy.
• Some thought Spain was not responsible for the sinking of the Maine.
• Businesses opposed the war because they expected to be damaged by it.
• McKinley himself was against war at first.

1. a republic founded by throwing off an empire acquires an empire of its own
2. the acquisition has to be argued for at home as well as won abroad
3. so the debate over imperialism is part of the event, not commentary on it

The Spanish-American War and the Treaty of Paris (1898)

The war was short and one-sided, and the Spanish fleet was destroyed early. Cambridge's schemes do not dwell on the fighting. They dwell on the settlement.

Terms of the Treaty of Paris (1898), from the mark scheme:

• It ended the Spanish-American War.
• Spain gave up its claim to Cuba. Cuba became independent but would be occupied by the USA.
• Spain gave up the Philippines to the USA in return for $20 million.
• Spain gave up Puerto Rico and Guam to the USA.

Why it mattered. Cambridge's model answer is unambiguous: the Treaty turned the USA into a major world power. Gaining Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines developed American military and economic power in the Pacific, so that the United States now held possessions from the Caribbean to the Pacific, and gained new trade markets in them. Cambridge's scheme also states that the Treaty marked the end of the Spanish Empire, that it led the United States to annex the Hawaiian Islands, and that it was a major issue in the 1900 election.

1. Spain cedes territory on two oceans in a single treaty
2. the USA acquires bases and markets from the Caribbean to the Pacific
3. a continental republic becomes a maritime power
4. and the argument about whether it should be one becomes an election issue

The Philippines, and the consequences of American control on the Filipinos

The syllabus asks specifically about the consequences for Filipinos, and Cambridge examined the sequence in March 2024:

• The First Philippine Republic was established in January 1899.
• McKinley announced an American civil government, ignoring the declaration of the Republic.
• The Philippine-American War began.
• The Filipinos conducted a guerrilla war against America.
• The Americans transported many Filipinos to concentration camps, where thousands died.
• The war ended with the capture of Aguinaldo by the Americans.
• The Republic fell in 1902 and an American civilian government was set up.

That is Cambridge's own list, in Cambridge's own words, and it is the answer to what American control meant for Filipinos. A war of independence against Spain was followed by a war of independence against the United States, and the second one was lost.

American intervention in Cuba to 1906

The syllabus sets an end date, so answers are marked to 1906 and nothing after it counts. Cambridge's sequence:

• When the war finished, the United States announced that it would rule Cuba.
• 1899: a US military government was set up. Cubans were surprised and disappointed by American actions.
• Elections were held for delegates to a Cuban convention, most of them sponsored by the United States.
• The Platt Amendment: the United States would depart provided it kept military bases and could intervene when it wanted.
• The Republic of Cuba was established.
• 1902: elections were held and the first president of the Republic of Cuba was chosen. The US army left in 1902.
• 1906: the United States occupied Cuba after a rebellion.

1. Cuba is granted independence but occupied
2. independence is made conditional on the Platt Amendment's right of intervention
3. the army withdraws in 1902 having written that right into the settlement
4. and uses it in 1906

That chain is the whole answer to "with what effects", and the Platt Amendment is the specific detail that earns the fifth mark inside it.

7. Judgement sentences that work on this Key Question

The tenth mark on part (c) is a separate act, and the shapes that reach it are set out in the How Cambridge marks History 0470 Paper 1 notes. What follows is that requirement applied to this content. Each states a position and attaches a reason, which is all Level 5 asks for.

• "The motives cannot be separated, but the strategic ones existed to protect the economic ones, so economics is the motive the others serve."
• "The impact was overwhelmingly exploitation, because the schools, railways and harbours that look like benefits were laid out to move resources to the coast, not to serve the people who lived beside them."
• "Leopold's rule was similar in what it did and different in what it was for, because other powers took wealth while claiming a duty to give something back, and he claimed nothing."
• "Indirect rule was more effective for Britain and assimilation was more effective for France, but neither was designed around what benefited the governed, which is what the question asks."
• "The cartridges were the trigger and not the cause, because a grievance that specific could not have produced a rising that widespread on its own."
• "The rising failed and the reforms that followed were real, but they were reforms in how India was held rather than in whether it was held, so it achieved change without achieving anything it fought for."
• "The atrocity reports mattered more than the Maine, because the Maine explosion moved an opinion the reports had already made."
• "American control was worse for Filipinos than Spanish control had been in the short term, because independence had been declared and was then fought down."

8. The mistakes this content produces

The general faults that apply to every question on the paper are listed in the How Cambridge marks History 0470 Paper 1 notes. Because no Principal Examiner report in this corpus comments on a Paper 1 imperialism question, the faults below are drawn from what the mark schemes themselves reward and refuse.

• Writing about China. The single biggest risk, because the past papers are full of it and the current specified content contains none of it. An answer about the Opium Wars or the Boxers on a 2027 paper is answering a question that no longer exists.
• Swapping the three models. France used direct rule and assimilation, Britain used indirect rule, Belgium ruled the Congo directly through Leopold personally. Candidates routinely put indirect rule in Senegal.
• Claiming that all Senegalese became French citizens. The citizenship promise was delivered in the Four Communes. Cambridge's own schemes credit both "the Senegalese had equal rights" and "direct rule just turned the local people into subjects not citizens", and the way to hold both is to name the Four Communes.
• Treating the Congo as a Belgian colony from the start. The syllabus phrase is private imperialism. It was Leopold's personal property, which is why there was no accountability, and saying so is the explanation rather than a detail.
• Publishing a Congo death figure with false confidence. Cambridge prints at least three different measures. Do not turn them into one number.
• Listing benefits and harms with no line taken. The commonest failure on the (c) questions in this section, and it caps at Level 3, which is 6 out of 10 however long the lists are.
• Assuming the "benefits" were welcomed. Cambridge credits African objection to the stopping of traditional practices and to Christianity displacing Islam, Hinduism and traditional religions. An answer that assumes hospitals were universally wanted is missing marks the scheme offers.
• Narrating 1857 instead of explaining it. The part (b) questions ask why it broke out, why the British responded violently, or why it mattered. A siege narrative answers none of them.
• Confusing the trigger with the cause. The greased cartridges are the trigger. Cambridge has set a whole 10 mark question on the difference.
• Ignoring the 1906 limit on Cuba. The specified content says "American intervention in Cuba to 1906", so a question with that limit is marked to 1906 and everything after it earns nothing.
• Writing about colonial rivalry as a cause of the First World War. That is Key Question 6, and on this question it is off the point.

9. Quick revision

• Scope is three African case studies, India in 1857, and the USA in Cuba and the Philippines. Nothing else, and above all not China.
• Motives: economic, military, geopolitical, religious and cultural. Cambridge's schemes group them as economic, strategic, prestige, and the civilising claim, and it sets "which mattered most" as a 10 mark question in most series.
• France, Senegal, Faidherbe: assimilation and direct rule, citizenship in the Four Communes, forts up the Senegal River, roads, bridges, railway, telegraph, peanut exports, and the destruction of the chiefs' power.
• Britain, Nigeria, Lugard: indirect rule through emirs answerable to British district officers, cheap, few officials, and it made chiefs more powerful and less accountable.
• Belgium, the Congo, Leopold II: private property, rubber and ivory, concession companies, the Force Publique, forced labour, mutilation for unmet quotas, and an international outcry.
• Impacts on Africans are two-sided by construction. Railways and hospitals on one side, extraction and cultural destruction on the other, and the same railway on both.
• 1857: Enfield cartridges as trigger, Doctrine of Lapse, land taxes, sepoy pay and promotion, and religious interference as causes. Meerut, Delhi, Lucknow, Cawnpore. Put down in 1859.
• After 1857: East India Company gone, Crown rule, Secretary of State and India Office, Viceroy with Lord Canning first, Indian Civil Service opened, Westernisation stopped, Mughal dynasty ended, more British soldiers in the army.
• 1898: Cuban rising from 1895, atrocity reporting, the USS Maine, Spain declares war and the USA declares two days later. Treaty of Paris (1898): Cuba independent but occupied, Philippines for $20 million, Puerto Rico and Guam ceded.
• Philippines 1899 to 1902: Republic declared January 1899, American civil government announced over it, guerrilla war, concentration camps, Aguinaldo captured, Republic falls 1902.
• Cuba to 1906: military government 1899, Platt Amendment, Republic and first president 1902, army leaves 1902, occupation again in 1906.
• Question number: 3 or 4, split exactly evenly, in 28 of the 48 mark schemes read.
• Past papers before 2024 are half off-specification on this topic. Use their Africa and India questions. Skip their China questions.

10. Syllabus map

Where these facts come from

Everything substantive on this page is taken from Cambridge's own documents, and each claim can be checked against a named one.

The Cambridge IGCSE History 0470 syllabus for 2027 and 2028. The Key Question, the four focus points and every line of the specified content, quoted in section 1 exactly as printed. Also the definitions of key question, focus point and specified content, and the Option A title.

Paper 1 mark schemes, March, June and November 2018 to 2024. All 48 in this corpus were read. They are the source of the question counts, the question numbers, every named person, place, policy, date and figure in sections 3 to 6, and every quoted Cambridge exemplar. Where a fact appears on this page it appears because a Cambridge mark scheme prints it. One variant is missing from the corpus, the third June 2018 paper, so the true total for 2018 to 2024 is 49 rather than 48.

Principal Examiner reports, 2018 to 2024. Eighteen reports were read. They are the source for section 2's finding that Option A attracts too few candidates for comment, and for the description of what Paper 2 did with this content in June 2023.

Paper 2 question papers, 2018 to 2024. The source for the list of series in which this Key Question supplied the Option A prescribed source topic.

Where Cambridge's own materials disagree

Surface these rather than trying to reconcile them.

• The Congo death toll. The June 2018 and November 2022 mark schemes print "nearly 10 million natives died prematurely under Leopold's rule". The November 2021 scheme prints "the forced labour system led to the deaths of 20% of the population". The June 2024 scheme says only "millions of Congolese were killed or mutilated". These are three different measures and Cambridge has never printed one authoritative figure. Use the wording, not an invented number.
• Which power used indirect rule. The November 2019 mark scheme states that Belgium used a native policy "whereas Britain used a system of indirect rule", which agrees with every other scheme in the corpus and with the syllabus. The November 2022 scheme prints the same sentence with France substituted for Britain. That is a slip in one mark scheme. The syllabus is the authority: indirect rule is the British model and assimilation with direct rule is the French one.
• Leopold's regnal number. The November 2020 mark scheme, describing the Berlin Conference, refers to the Congo being recognised as the private property of Leopold I. Every other reference in the corpus, and the syllabus itself, says Leopold II. Write Leopold II.
• Belgian rule or Leopold's rule. A June 2018 question asks how people in the Congo were treated "under Belgian rule", while the syllabus and the later schemes stress that the Congo was Leopold's personal property rather than a Belgian state colony. Both wordings appear in Cambridge material. If a question uses the looser one, answer it, but make the private ownership part of your explanation.

Details taken from Cambridge that this page could not cross-check

• The June 2024 mark scheme lists Thomas Reed among the Americans who opposed war with Spain and describes him as a senator. The name is Cambridge's; his office could not be verified from anything else in this corpus, so the safe form in an answer is to name him as an opponent of the war without stating an office.
• The same scheme states that the Treaty of Paris "led to President McKinley annexing the Hawaiian Islands". That causal claim is Cambridge's, and no date for the annexation appears anywhere in the corpus. Use Cambridge's phrasing and do not attach a date to it.
• The Government of India Act is named in a mark scheme without a year. No year for it appears in the corpus, so this page does not give one.

A note on typography

Cambridge prints an en dash in constructions such as the Spanish-American War, 1848 to 1914 and 1884 to 1885. This page uses hyphens or the word "to" throughout, in line with house style. No wording has been changed.

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